Long Version

The Animal Carvings of Oaxaca

Combine a centuries old tradition of wood carving with a fanciful sense of form and add the Mexican flair for bright, surprising color schemes and you get the famous "alebrijes," or animal carvings of Oaxaca. Found in museums and galleries throughout the United States and other countries, these works are recognized as a supreme expression of the best of Mexican folk art. The quality and widespread popularity of the work is a rare example of the perfect marriage of art and commerce. But these carvings we so admire today were hundreds of years in the making.

Perhaps the most appealing legend tells of a native Oaxacan who had a dream in which he saw strange animals that looked like composites of several animals. They were making sounds he could not understand, except for the word "alebrije." This is how they got their name. We do know that Dominican monks taught the natives to carve decorative forms on church altars, using copal, one of the local woods. It is also probable that in more recent times the carvers borrowed design concepts from the fanciful paper mache figures of Mexico City, which are also known as alebrijes. But the experience of visiting an artist's workshop overwhelms any thoughts of how they came to be.

We visited several workshops in Arrazola, one of three or so towns that specialize in the art of the alebrijes. We learned that the creation of the figures is often a family affair. Men usually carve the figures, and women usually paint them. The carving is done with machetes and knifes, with no fancy power tools. The painting is accomplished using a variety of brushes and off the shelf enamel paint. These simple methods make the dizzying array of fantastic, stunningly painted figures all the more impressive.

The figures ranged from dragons, deer, rabbits, armadillos, mermaids, devils, angels, animals with the faces of other animal or human faces, humans with animal faces, reptilian like creatures, and much more. All were painted in unusual, even startling color combinations. Among our numerous purchases, we choose a splendid piece that depicts a snake coiled around a cactus with a hummingbird imbibing nectar from its flower. It was a great pleasure to meet these unassuming, but immensely talented artists, and in our own small way become a part of the tradition of the alebrijes.